What could be a good holiday season for
Apple could also be a slower one for United Airlines and others in the travel industry.
According to consumer electronics shopping and comparison site Retrevo.com, people plan to spend more
on electronics and less on travel this holiday season than last year. According to the company's most recent Gadgetology survey, 16% of consumers said they would spend more on electronics, while 28%
said they would spend less on travel this year.
"It's a sign of the times that [consumers] don't want to get into big credit card debt," Andrew Eisner, director of content Retrevo.com, tells
Marketing Daily. "But they're still lusting after gadgets."
The hot consumer electronics gift this year looks to be a tablet computer. According to the Retrevo survey, the tablet ranked
at the top of most respondents' wish lists, followed by laptop computers, HDTV sets and a Kindle or e-reader. The desirability of tablet computers could mean strong results for Apple, because no one
has yet to come up with an Android-enabled device that competes well with the iPad, Eisner says.
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"Apple's going to have a great holiday season because Google forgot [Android] was supposed to
work on tablets," Eisner says. "Apple's got this season in the bag."
Despite the hype that started last January with 3DTV, the rage still hasn't caught on with consumers. Three-dimensional
television sets ranked seventh among the most desired items, indicating they may be more of a slow-burn item that takes some time to catch on, Eisner says. "You'll see more and more programming
available, and then it will start to pick up," he says.
In addition, while more than half of consumers said they planned on buying electronics this holiday season, it should come as little
surprise that the largest groups of gadget buyers will be people under 34, males and iPhone owners.